Since his appearance as McMurphy in the stage version of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1963, Douglas had been campaigning to produce a screen version of the anti-establishment story, even bringing on his son Michael as a co-producer. At first, Hollywood considered the film too controversial. When Michael Douglas finally secured funding, the production company felt his father was too old to play the role (something the elder Douglas would vehemently protest in his memoirs) and considered several actors before setting on Jack Nicholson, who would win his first Oscar® for his performance.
With one son working on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Douglas decided to produce, direct and star in Posse. At the time, he could console himself with the fact that another son, Joel, would be on location with him as an assistant. But even that didn't work out since partway through filming Joel left to serve as unit production manager on his brother's film.
A longtime liberal, Douglas had been moved strongly by the fight to end the war in Vietnam and the political scandals surrounding Richard Nixon's presidency. For his return to film directing, he decided to tackle a Western with subtle parallels to contemporary politics. He found what he wanted in Christopher Knopf's story about a Western marshal trying to use the apprehension of a notorious criminal to grease the road to Washington and even the White House, only to have his captive turn the tables on him, luring the posse into a life of crime and disgracing his captor. Knopf, a veteran of television Westerns, joined forces with another seasoned writer, William Roberts, who had written The Magnificent Seven (1960).
Posse wasn't Douglas' first attempt at directing. His previous effort, a comic take on Treasure Island released as Scalawag (1973), had drawn blistering reviews, partly for his stagy camera work. Determined to learn from past mistakes, he worked hard to make Posse more fluid, combining moving camera shots with rapid cutting to keep the action moving. In addition, he took advantage of the depth of Knopf and Williams' script to make the town, which first welcomes the marshal then turns against him, into the film's true protagonist.
Douglas also made some astute casting choices. Along with casting himself as the ambitious marshal, he cast Bruce Dern, a fast rising character actor, as the criminal who supplants him in public appeal. Aware of the actor's star quality, he directed him to play the outlaw as if he were the hero and even suggested he think of himself as Gary Cooper. As a result, critics raved about Dern's performance, while later fans have credited him with creating one of the genre's most charismatic law-breakers.
On the advice of his agent, Douglas created a showy supporting role as the town's newspaper editor for James Stacy, a promising young actor whose career had been cut short by a motorcycle accident in which he had lost an arm and a leg. Still recovering from the accident, Stacy clashed often with Douglas. When he finally had had enough of the actor's complaining, Douglas told him, "Look Jim, I'm not going to treat you like a cripple. You don't like me. And I don't like you, Jim. But we're stuck with each other. I'm the director, and it's my production. So we'll just have to work with each other." After production finished however, Douglas thought enough of the actor to testify in Stacy's behalf in a lawsuit related to the accident and the director and actor remained friends for years.
Among the other cast members showcased in Posse were Alfonso Arau, a Mexican actor who would later direct the international hit Like Water for Chocolate (1992), character actor Dick O'Neill, best-known for playing Sharon Gless' father on Cagney and Lacey, and Beth Brickell, who would leave acting to go into directing and political action, eventually working on Bill Clinton's presidential campaign. The film also features two future soap stars, five-time Emmy winner David Canary, who has been playing twins Stuart and Adam Chandler for the past two-and -a-half decades on All My Children, and Melody Thomas, who has reigned as Nikki Reed Newman on The Young and the Restless since 1979.
Posse won strong reviews at a time when Westerns were not considered strong box office contenders. The British press, in particular, praised its almost effortless pairing of political commentary with Western action. It did respectable business, though it was hardly a runaway hit. Perhaps the older audience still drawn to Westerns, when they bothered going to the movies at all, wasn't interested in the picture's liberal politics, while the audience that would have been drawn to its deeper meanings wasn't interested in seeing a Western. Seen today, Posse ranks as a minor genre classic which proves how undervalued Douglas's talents as a producer-director were at the time it was made.
Producer-Director: Kirk Douglas
Screenplay: William Roberts, Christopher Knopf
Based on a story by Knopf
Cinematography: Fred J. Koenekamp
Art Direction: Lyle R. Wheeler
Score: Maurice Jarre
Cast: Kirk Douglas (Marshal Howard Nightingale), Bruce Dern (Jack Strawhorn), Bo Hopkins (Wesley), James Stacey (Hellman, Editor), Luke Askew (Krag), David Canary (Pensteman), Alfonso Arau (Peppe), Beth Brickell (Mrs. Ross), Dick O'Neill (Wiley), Melody Thomas (Laurie). C- 92m. Letterboxed. Closed Captioning.
by Frank Miller
Sources:
The Ragman's Son by Kirk Douglas
